A trade deal with Texas: The UK can learn from the Lone Star State

There are three ways to look at the trade “co-operation” agreement which will be signed today between the UK and the great state of Texas. The first is as a largely pointless press release, a damning indictment of pre-Brexit promises of an all-singing, all-dancing trade deal with the entire United States, not just a particularly fun bit of it.

The second is as a welcome sign of pragmatism, doing deals where one can in lieu of White House interest, and a not insignificant link-up with an economy which if independent – and let’s not give Texans any ideas – would be the 9th largest in the world.

The third way is to see it as a cowboy boot up the backside of the UK’s institutions. Texas is on the rise: a combination of growth-friendly policies, deregulated planning and housing, and a buzzing innovation ecosystem has turned places like Austin and San Antonio into tech powerhouses, complementing the economic might of Dallas and Houston.

There are lessons to be learned right across the board: salaries in Texas are flying, businesses are thriving, and the working population is spiking. 

If only that was the case here. Our welfare system is now so out of whack that more than 9m people of working age are no longer looking for work. Economic growth is stagnant. Businesses complain of being strangled by regulation and the structural issues in the housing market and planning system are blindingly obvious to all who care to look. Institutions from the Treasury to the Bank of England remain focussed on everything other than growing the economy; stasis over all. 

The UK is not Texas. But we could do with importing some of its get up and go in this country-operation agreement.